In the second part of her review of La Batalla de San Romano—Miguel von Dangel’s version of the Renaissance painter Paolo Uccello’s work by the same name— María Luz Cárdenas describes the different sections in von Dangel’s version. She explains that this work consists of three panels; in the first panel, “la Batalla,” the artist works on Uccello’s original version. The second panel is “el Altar” that forms the backdrop for La Madonna’s sacrifice. And the third panel, “San Jorge y el dragón,” is also included in Uccello’s version. Each of these panels is subdivided into various elements, which Cárdenas describes, concluding that von Dangel’s piece represents a struggle “against the icons that we comfortably accept to reassure our aesthetic indulgences.”  

This article is the second part of the essay in which María Luz Cárdenas reviews La Batalla de San Romano, the German-born Venezuelan visual artist Miguel von Dangel’s version of the homonymous painting by Paolo Uccello. Von Dangel (b. 1946) produced his version on a set of panels that, altogether, are about thirty two meters long and are a combination of painting and sculpture. It was exhibited for the first time in 1990 at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas. Two years later, this huge work represented Venezuela at the 1992 Biennale di Venezia.       

This article provides a detailed and very complete description of this complex work by von Dangel which, according to many critics, including Cárdenas, expresses the artist’s maturity and captures the essence of his aesthetic. In this part of her review, Cárdenas focuses mainly on a description of the work, shedding light on its heterogeneous elements and the power of its symbolic and cultural message. She also points out the similarities, interwoven threads, and overlapping that von Dangel refers to in his cultural comparisons between the New World and the Old World, and describes how they converge in his colorful aesthetic.    

The complexity of the work of art described in this article suggests that it could be interpreted in an endless variety of ways. This article was originally published in the Guía de Estudio de La Batalla de San Romano (Caracas: Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, 1990). 

To read other critical texts on the work of the artist Miguel von Dangel, see the article by Yasmín Monsalve “Mi obra ha tenido que luchar contra muchos prejuicios: un premio nacional visto con la luz de Petare” [doc. no. 1102125]; the articles by Elsa Flores “Miguel von Dangel: la respuesta latinoamericana (I)” [doc. no. 1155150], “Miguel von Dangel: la respuesta latinoamericana (II)” [doc. no. 1154906], and “Miguel von Dangel” [doc. no. 1056044]; the essay published in 1986 by Roberto Montero Castro “Transfiguraciones de Miguel von Dangel” [doc. no.1153996]; the essay by María Luz Cárdenas “La Batalla de San Romano de von Dangel (I)” [doc. no. 1154028]; the essay published in 1996 by Ruth Auerbach “Hoy, el paisaje es aquí y ahora” [doc. no. 855314]; the essay published in 1997 by Julio Ortega “La iridiscencia del ojo de la materia o como leer un objeto artístico procesal” [doc. no. 1155251]; the interview published in 1998 by Axel Stein “Interview with Miguel von Dangel” [doc. no. 1102348]; María Cecília Valera’s interview “Entrevista con Miguel von Dangel” [doc. no. 1154060]; María Josefa Pérez’s interview “Miguel von Dangel: no creo el cuento de que Reverón era loco” [doc. no. 1154012]; and the article by Víctor Guédez “Lo barroco y lo simbólico en la obra de Miguel von Dangel” [doc. no. 1154124].